By now, you’ve got most likely heard about customers fleeing Elon Musk’s X. Sure, there have been a couple of different moments over time since Musk acquired then-Twitter when customers determined to depart — there was even a minimum of one try and create an alternate Twitter earlier than possession by Musk was even seen as a chance.
However this time the exodus seems to be considerably greater. Following the 2024 presidential election outcomes and Musk’s assist for President-elect Donald Trump, customers have been deactivating en masse.
And this time, it seems most everybody has settled on one explicit X various: Bluesky.
Bluesky has loads in widespread with X. It is a related public city sq. kind microblogging-style platform. Actually, earlier than Musk took over then-Twitter, it acquired an funding from the corporate. Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey even sat on Bluesky’s board up till earlier this yr.
Bluesky has gained greater than 100,000 new signal ups per day for the reason that U.S. election on Nov. 5. It now has over 15 million customers. It is loved a chronic keep on the very high of Apple’s App Retailer charts as effectively.
Prepared to hitch? Here is easy methods to get began on Bluesky:
How to enroll in Bluesky
Not too way back, Bluesky was invite-only. New customers might solely be a part of the platform in the event that they acquired an invite from an present person.
That is not the case anymore. Anybody can join Bluesky.
Credit score: Bluesky
To enroll, merely go to bsky.app and click on the Signal Up button. You may discover that each one the standard enter fields discovered when signing up for some other social media platform are there reminiscent of e-mail, password, and birthday.
Credit score: Bluesky
Nonetheless, there’s one factor that is totally different: Internet hosting supplier. Mainly, Bluesky permits those that are extra tech-savvy to host their very own model of Bluesky, very like how various social media platform Mastodon has “situations.” Nonetheless, most customers simply haven’t got to fret about this. It won’t have an effect on their expertise in any respect. Simply hold Bluesky Social as your internet hosting supplier.
Mashable Mild Pace
Credit score: Bluesky
On the following web page, customers will be capable to decide their username. Select any accessible identify and Bluesky will then add “.bsky.social” to the top of it. Why? As a result of Bluesky permits customers to make use of their very own web site area as their deal with. For instance, in case you personal YourName.com, your Bluesky deal with might be “@YourName.com” on the platform. As soon as once more, this isn’t essential to get the total Bluesky expertise. Most customers will simply go by @YourName.bsky.social.
From there, Bluesky gives you the choice to add an avatar and decide matters of curiosity in order that the platform can finest counsel accounts to comply with.
The right way to get began on Bluesky
Congratulations, you are in. Your Bluesky account is all setup and now you will get began.
You may discover that Bluesky appears loads like Elon Musk’s X, previously generally known as Twitter. There is a Uncover feed which is principally the For You feed with instructed posts and content material. There is a Following feed, which solely consists of posts from different Bluesky customers that you simply comply with.
Credit score: Bluesky
On the left hand aspect menu, there is a Profile tab to your personal account and a Notifications tab that reveals who interacted and replied to your posts. The Chat tab is principally the equal of Direct Messages.
Because you’re new to Bluesky, you are going to wish to begin off by following some accounts. Utilizing the Search tab, yow will discover Steered accounts really useful by the platform primarily based in your pursuits. It’s also possible to seek for particular folks to see in the event that they’re additionally on Bluesky. Should you’re coming from Musk’s X, there is a third-party Chrome extension referred to as Sky Follower Bridge that may make it easier to find the accounts you comply with on that platform that even have an account on Bluesky.
Most likely essentially the most distinctive facet of Bluesky is the pair of associated options: Lists and Feeds. You is likely to be considering that Bluesky’s Lists characteristic is a bit like Twitter Lists, nevertheless, the Lists characteristic is rather more integral to how Bluesky works than that.
Lists are a group of accounts that may be adopted, muted, or blocked in bulk. For instance, customers can create a listing of Bluesky customers that they assume all different customers taken with a sure matter or passion ought to comply with. Different customers can then simply comply with that complete listing of customers. On the flip aspect, Bluesky customers have additionally compiled lists of accounts that put up hateful or extremist content material. Customers can simply block all of the customers on that Checklist and never see any of these account’s content material present up on their feed.
Credit score: Bluesky
Feeds alternatively will not be lists of accounts, however curated feeds. Consider Feeds as custom-made For You pages. There are Feeds for simply sure matters like Science or Artwork, there are feeds with content material only for particular varieties of accounts, after which there are algorithmically primarily based customized feeds that rely on what’s at present standard on the location. By following a feed, you add a model new tab in your foremost timeline to maintain up with alongside your Uncover and Following feed.
Credit score: Bluesky
However, it will get even simpler truly. Bluesky just lately launched a brand new characteristic referred to as “Starter Packs” which principally recommends customers and feeds so you will get began. Different customers may curate their very own Starter Packs to assist their new followers discover further accounts to comply with too. Simply go to your account’s profile web page and click on the Starter Packs tab to get began.
Able to put up
This may increasingly all sound a bit a lot, however it’s actually not. Simply keep in mind, you needed to get began someplace on X and different social media platforms to. And in case you’ve made it this far, you are able to put up. That is the half that is actually harking back to Twitter.
Credit score: Bluesky
Posts on Bluesky are restricted to 300 characters. Customers can put up pictures and .gifs as effectively. Bluesky additionally just lately added video, which may be posted so long as the clip is 60 seconds or much less.
Customers can like content material by clicking the guts icon. They will additionally repost content material in addition to quote posts.
And there you go. That is all of the Bluesky fundamentals. Now there isn’t any excuse to not give an alternative choice to Musk’s X a attempt.
Subjects
Social Media
X/Twitter